He was responsible for an initiative on Bathurst Island after Cyclone Tracey that saw the building of 39 homes for aboriginal people that they were purchasing. This preceded the initiatives of Mal Brough by nearly thirty years.

He was a remarkable man with a passion for aboriginal people.

Ken had an accountant's eye and skills which he brought to his work as bursar at MSC colleges, including Monivae, Hamilton.

May he rest in peace.

(NT reflections from Tim Brennan MSC)

Requiem Mass for Br Ken will be celebrated

on Monday 13^th February

at 11:00am 

at

Chapel of Sacred Heart Monastery Kensington followed by burial at Douglas Park.

Indian Union bids farewell to P. Prasad Rao Chinthakunta, MSC

BANGALORE, India

Fr. Prasad was ordained a priest in 2006. After one year of experience in a parish in Andra Pradesh, he was sent to Pune for a year long course on formation. Ever since he has been into formation until recently, when he received an invitation to work as an assistant pastor in Randwick parish in Australia. This will be an enriching experience for him.

The Indian Union thanked him for his acceptance of this invitation to work abroad, and bid farewell through a solemn thanksgiving mass at 12.15 pm on January 26. There was also a small ceremony of sending during the mass. Fr. Prasad is our second MSC to work in Australia.

The one who preceded him was Fr. Joshua, who is now moving from Randwick to St Thomas' Church, Willoughby in Australia. Right now Fr. Joshua is in India for several weeks of holidays. Fr. Prasad left for Australia at 11 pm on February 1. The Indian Union wishes him all the very best in his new ministry.

Sent by Fr Julius Francis Kumar MSC, Bangalore.

Robin Williams of the Brisbane Catholic Leader conducted an interview with Sr Rita Grunke FDNSC.

ONE of the first things Daughter of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart Sister Rita Grunke will do when she arrives back in South Sudan is find a village that needs a water well.

Sr Rita is not expecting it to be all that difficult in the newly independent country with more than two and a half million people in the Diocese of Rumbek alone to find a village that needs the well.

She does however have a few specific criteria for the chosen village before she commits the $10,000 funds specifically donated by Bracken Ridge parish, Brisbane for the project.

Sr Rita spoke with The Leader as she prepared to return to the OLSH South Sudan ministry team based in Mapuordit parish, Rumbek diocese.

Fr Peter Fulton, of the archdiocese of Melbourne, has died in the Austin Hospital, February 3rd 2012.

Peter Fulton volunteered for the Melbourne Overseas Mission and went to the diocese of Kerema in 1977.  The bishops of the diocese have included Virgil Copas MSC and Paul Marx MSC.

In a plane crash in 1978, Peter Fulton lost the use of both legs and lived as a paraplegic for several decades.  However, he continued in ministry, including being parish priest at Mt Eliza.  For some time, he was also on the staff of Corpus Christi seminary in Clayton.  In more recent years, he resided at Greensborough.

A cheerful man who bore a great deal of pain with fortitude, he was known to MSC who worked in PNG as well as to MSC who worked in Melbourne.

May he rest in peace.

From the CFA, Communication Foundation for Asia (the MSC media ministry flagship in Manila) Website

Social Media Workshop for Asian Bishops

With bishops, priests, lay and religious leaders from ten Asian countries as participants, CFA’s popular Social Media workshop took place in Hualien, Taiwan on November 14-19, 2011. The occasion was the 16th annual “Bishops’ Meet”, a six-day meeting of the Federation for Asian Bishops’ Conferences – Office of Social Communication (FABC-OSC), which was on the theme “Social Networking for Pastoral Ministry”. The high-level participation came from such places as Myanmar, India, Malaysia, Thailand, Mongolia, Korea, Singapore, Taiwan, Brunei and the Philippines.

Two days out of the six-day Bishops’ Meet were devoted to a workshop on Social Media. The resource speaker was Fr. Stephen Cuyos, MSC, who is the production and training specialist of the Communication Foundation for Asia (CFA).

Member of the Board of the MSC media centre in Manila, the Communication Foundation for Asia, Doy del Mondo Jr, has won the prize for best fiction feature in the Spirituality section of the 12 th Dhaka International Film Festival held in Bangladesh, January 12-20th.

His film, Flight of an Angel, is a gentle parable of a man who does a kindness to a stranger and then begins to grow wings.  He does not want to be an angel and has to face up to decisions about his life.

The statuette was presented at a ceremony at CFA by Peter Malone MSC who was a member of the Spirituality section jury. The film was produced by the De La Salle Brothers on the occasion of the 300th anniversary of La Salle University.  Brother Bernard FSC represented La Salle.  Also present were Fr Fil Pelingon MSC, president of CFA and Ms Terry Hermano, the executive director.

Pat Walsh has been awarded the Australia Medal, AM, in the Australia Day Honours' List.  He has been acknowledged for his continuous commitment to the cause of East Timor, especially independence and, since then, in development.

For several years, Pat was an MSC priest and taught at Monivae College, Hamilton.

He recently published a book of memoirs and reflections on his years working for East Timor, 'At the Scene of the Crime'.

[Information sent by Leo Wearden MSC from Wadeye.  Leo has shared this passion for East Timor for a long time.]